eva - enjoy voestalpine

"eva - enjoy voestalpine" is the central customer platform for voestalpine's digital services, with dcupl as the core component of Digital Customer Interaction. In view of the need to modernize the PDS and KSC systems, Netural was chosen as a partner to develop "eva" – a powerful platform that combines user experience and technical excellence. dcupl enabled rapid development and the management of complex data volumes. As a central access point, eva offers quick access to modern web applications that efficiently process and present data.

The Initial Challenge

As a globally active manufacturer of high-quality steel products, the Steel Division of the voestalpine Group plays a driving role in shaping a clean and livable future. Steel production is a science and steel mills are incredibly complex machines: production planning and logistics juggle materials, quantities, transport capacities, standards, and technical documentation.

voestalpine recognized the value of digital support in B2B production and logistics management early on and introduced corresponding services for customers around the turn of the millennium. In 2018, the decision was made to put two of the most important and most used systems on a completely new footing – on the one hand, the product catalog PDS (Product Data System) embedded in the voestalpine website, and on the other hand, the customer service center KSC (KundenServiceCenter).

Both systems had grown enormously over the years, and their replacement was correspondingly challenging. The focus was on modernizing the user interface in particular, with correspondingly high performance, but above all, new ideas and approaches in the development of digital services were sought – towards a user-centered approach combined with technical excellence. ONE STEP AHEAD.

The Solution

In addition to the high expectations in terms of user experience on the part of voestalpine - and of course also from their customers - the technical implementation of the project was challenging. Especially the Customer Service Center with hundreds of thousands of order data and millions of associated documents and their synchronization with a variety of upstream systems require high-performance, stable solutions and technologies.

5+ Million Documents

In addition to the high expectations in terms of user experience on the part of voestalpine - and of course also from their customers - the technical implementation of the project was challenging. Especially the Customer Service Center with hundreds of thousands of order data and millions of associated documents and their synchronization with a variety of upstream systems require high-performance, stable solutions and technologies.

dcupl as high-performance technology and part of the robust software architecture

To be prepared for the future and to remain as independent as possible, the project was implemented using OpenShift, thus taking on a pioneering role in the cloud-based operation of complex business applications on the part of voestalpine. To meet the high demands and user expectations, Netural used and continues to use the framework for data-intensive web applications dcupl as a high-performance technology and part of the robust software architecture. With dcupl, significant advantages in the development process could be utilized during the initial implementation of the "eva" platform and, in particular, in the development of the "Webshop" - as a third, extensive B2B service alongside KSC and PDS. As soon as systems, databases and interfaces are available for maintenance and delivery, dcupl makes it easy to switch from static integration to dynamic, interface-based integration.

The data volume

• 5000+ partners
• in 3 sales organizations (Steel, Heavy Plate, Steel & Service Center)
• 2000+ accounts
• 500,000+ orders
• 5,000+ shipping orders monthly
• 5+ Million documents
• 3000+ steel grades

The Impact

The advantages of developing with dcupl at voestalpine lie, on the one hand, in the development speed and the bridging of systemically unmapped data sets (Dual-Speed), but on the other hand, also in the development tools of the dcupl Console. This offers developers services for data analysis, data modeling, and troubleshooting, significantly accelerating the development process. The time-to-value of dcupl is minimal, the added value in application development is immediately noticeable and measurable at the start of the project.

User Experience includes, in addition to the user interface and user guidance, especially the performance in operating an application. How quickly users can switch masks, how quickly filter data, how quickly adapt masks to individual needs. All of this is part of the user experience. With dcupl technology, Netural meets these requirements in a variety of lighthouse projects of recent years.